


Touch

by ValkyrieShepard



Series: The Symbiote and I [1]
Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Assault, Broken Bones, Domesticity, Fluff, M/M, growing affection, touch starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-03 02:56:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16317803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValkyrieShepard/pseuds/ValkyrieShepard
Summary: Based on an anonymous prompt: No one has touched Eddie in months, not since his ex fiancé. Now he has a Symbiote permanently fused to him, who wants to do anything to make him feel better.





	Touch

**Author's Note:**

> This is set before [Surprise](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16295294) but written after, so I'm putting this at the head of the series. If you want to see a prompt or an idea (domestic, fluff, kinky, whatever) explored in a short fic, drop me a line on my [tumblr](http://valkyrieshepard.tumblr.com) or my [Twitter](http://twitter.com/valkyrieshepard).

**Eddie.**

 

“Mhhmm?”

 

**Why are you still in bed? We’re bored.**

 

“I’m not bored. Leave me alone.”

 

Eddie turned and pulled the blanket around him tighter, ignoring the fact that this didn’t mean he was hiding from Venom. He was always there with him, no matter what he did. So far that hadn’t really been an issue, but today was one of those days where he just wanted to stay in bed and not do anything. His symbiote apparently had other ideas.

 

**Hungry.**

 

“Then get yourself some food, you know where it is.”

 

Venom was clearly unhappy with him, he could feel a little annoyance coming from him but nevertheless he stretched the way to the kitchen and rummaged around there. Eddie tried not to think of the mess he was making and just glanced at where the dark matter vanished behind the door and around the corner. He pulled up his shirt and looked at where they were connected, the black that stuck to him like some kind of web.

 

Reaching out he wondered if Venom would react to his touch, and stopped halfway. This sensation was… strange. Venom could be cold, he could be warm, but this state that he had been getting used to, what he considered normal now, was different. It was very faint, and thankfully not ticklish when he came in and out of him.

 

Eddie shook his head, that thought was still so strange. Venom was bonded to him. Inside him. And not in a kinky way - although that thought had occurred to Eddie once or twice since this whole thing had started. He had been on the internet long enough to know what people fantasised about when they saw tentacles. That hadn’t exactly been his thing but…

 

He sighed and turned again, looking down at Venom once more. He was eating something, and he saw the part attached to him move, shift lower, towards his crotch and he was about to say something when it shifted further down. On his leg, then his bare foot. He guessed Venom needed a bit more reach and let out a sigh of relief. He wasn’t quite ready to go all the way yet.

 

Other things, more normal things bothered him.

 

He turned to reach for his phone, scrolling through a Twitter feed that showed news from all over the world. Few and far in between were some personal posts from ex-colleagues that had been too nice to unfollow him immediately, and Annie… with Dan. Being happy. Hugging. Kissing. Sharing meals.

 

Eddie sighed again.

 

He had lost so much. Sure, since the whole symbiote thing had happened he had gotten some of it back, and he was feeling a little bit better, wasn’t getting drunk as much… But he still hadn’t made new friends except for one alien. Let alone a relationship with anyone. Unlike Annie, he had had a hard time moving on from theirs. It was a lonely existence and as long as he had been drinking it all away it hadn’t bothered him as much as it did now.

 

After the fourth picture of someone being overly affectionate with their significant other he exited the damn Twitter app and sat up. Briefly he considered getting up, maybe eating something, then he fell back into bed. Slowly Venom was returning to the bed, feeling fed and content, but didn’t return back into Eddie. Instead he became half a human shape, a torso, head, arms, but no legs, lying by his side.

 

**Why are you like this?**

 

“Gee, thanks…,” Eddie huffed and rolled his eyes. Again he noticed himself glancing down to where they were connected. He wanted to touch.

 

**Touch.**

 

“It’s fine,” he replied, knowing full well that he was absolutely not fine. Not today.

 

**Why do you lie?**

 

Right. He couldn’t hold back anything from Venom. Maybe he needed to teach him about boundaries too. To stay out of his head when he didn’t want him in there. He could almost hear Annie scolding him inside his head, a faint memory of her explaining that if he hid all his feelings, he would just be pushing people further away. Venom wasn’t people though. And yet.

 

He finally reached out to touch them where they were connected, his hand passing through and grasping the dark matter. It was light today, barely solid and it ran between his hands, fading back into his stomach. Slightly cold, he pushed his hand deeper into it, feeling the silky softness and he almost shuddered.

 

Quickly he pulled back again, not looking at Venom who had been watching this curiously. How much Venom understood of humans, he didn’t know. Sometimes he seemed clueless, other times he knew more than Eddie, it was a little weird.

 

 **Want more?,** he asked, and Eddie felt a bit of heat rise into his cheeks.

 

“More of that? No thanks.”

 

God, why was he like this? There were no secrets between them and yet he was trying to have them. Venom had betrayed his own kind for him. **“You, Eddie,”** he had said. For him. Why was it so hard then to admit that he wanted something from him. More than this.

 

“Hey, how about we do some shopping,” Eddie suddenly said and quickly got out of bed with Venom following behind him. “Let’s see what a mess you made. Jesus, look at that, you know the least you could do is put whatever you don’t need back…”

 

He busied himself with cleaning up the kitchen, with touching cold, hard plates and dead vegetables that neither of them wanted to eat.

 

**Plates are boring. Want more.**

 

“That’s why we’re gonna go shopping. But I don’t want another living parasite in this place because you let some of the food rot until it moves on its own.”

 

**I’m not a parasite!**

 

“Oh yeah?! Then don’t act like one!”

 

He turned and stared at nothing, Venom had evidently gone back inside him and he hadn’t even noticed it. He didn’t know why that disappointed him. He was so touch starved that he craved any touch at all, even if it was from an alien symbiote. Why was he so mean then?

 

He could practically feel the pause inside his head from Venom who, very slowly, materialised again and with one tentacle grabbed the trash can, with another shoved pieces of leftover food from the counter into it. Eddie mock bowed to him.

 

“Thank you, darling.”

 

 **Welcome,** Venom grumbled but he didn’t feel angry. Slightly embarrassed? Apparently he was much better at shielding himself from Eddie’s thoughts than it was the other way around.

 

Either way they cleaned up the kitchen together before Eddie put on another hoodie and grabbed one of the many plastic bags inside another plastic bag for their groceries. He didn’t want to look at anyone else today, but it was difficult to avoid when he was on the terrible _outside_. And for whatever reason today, on this slightly chilly autumn day, everyone and their significant other decided to be especially obnoxious with how much they loved each other.

 

“Christ, can you at least make out somewhere where you’re not blocking the entire sidewalk?!,” he barked at a particularly annoying couple who frowned and cussed at him as they made way. “Yeah go get a room already!”

 

 **Should we eat their heads?,** Venom asked.

 

“No! No head eating!”

 

**But they make you angry. And sad.**

 

“That’s still not a reason to eat their heads. Why are you so obsessed with heads anyway?,” he asked, ignoring the stare an old lady gave him. He was going to have to get used to that.

 

**Brains are tasty.**

 

“You know what,” Eddie stopped and sighed. They had made it to the grocery store but there was also a butcher nearby. “After we get some normal stuff, we’ll go and get some brain- Pig brain, okay?”

 

He felt euphoria practically radiating from Venom inside him, and Eddie couldn’t help but grin. It was a little bit weird to be buying brains but there were plenty of humans even who ate them, so why not treat his symbiote to some?

 

Suddenly he froze as he felt something around him. Not the cold, silky mass that he had touched earlier, no, this was different. It was Venom, there was no doubt, but he could feel him warmer, tentacles that became thicker wrapping around his torso. He quickly stepped aside, steadying himself against the wall of a building.

 

Venom became even warmer still, thicker, more dense, until he was wrapped around his torso like… Like a hug. All of a sudden he found himself shaking, heart threatening to jump out of his chest, breath coming in uneven bursts. It had been so long, so lonely, that he was panicking? He was so confused by his own body and wants, and so embarrassed that this was happening in public but he didn’t know how to stop it.

 

Slowly he was sinking to his knees, hand still against the brick wall of the building. No one was stopping to ask if he was alright, but he felt eyes on himself. He should have just stayed in bed.

 

 **Shhh,** Venom’s voice inside his head drowned out everything else around him. The mass hugging him moved, very slowly and gently. Soothing. **We’re here for you. We’ll take care of you. We’ll hold you.**

 

“You will?,” tears formed in the corner of his eyes and he barely managed to choke out the words. How long had it been since he had been hugged? Months. Since he had been loved? Longer than that. “You will? Always?”

 

 **Always, Eddie.** **You belong to us now. No more sadness.**

 

Kneeling on the cold concrete pavement he hugged himself, arms wrapping around his torso where Venom was already holding him. And he let himself believe, falling into this abyss of things that he had been repressing, trusting Venom completely to be there for him. He was, he would be, he was here right now.

 

The tentacles became thicker, the hug tighter, just for a moment before they flattened. Venom stayed that way and Eddie realised that he would for as long as Eddie asked him to. With the symbiote hugging him under his clothes, he finally stood again, wiping some tears from his cheek. After a few more moments of taking in the fresh, cold air, and concentrating on that sensation around him, he managed to calm down.

 

“Hey Mrs. Chen,” he greeted her as he walked inside the familiar store.

 

 **Hello Mrs. Chen,** echoed Venom.

 

“Venom says hello and how beautiful you look today,” Eddie said with a smile as she laughed a little.

 

 **We did not say that**.

 

“Oh that Venom, what a charmer,” he continued anyway. “Says that blouse looks good on you.”

 

“More charming than you, that’s for sure,” Mrs. Chen teased, and Eddie returned her smile.

 

**You’re a dork, Eddie.**

 

“Maybe I am. You’re the one that chose to stay with me,” he said to the can of corn he picked out. “What does that say about you?”

 

**That we like dorks.**

 

Eddie froze when something slithered along his torso, and he gripped the edge of the shelf he was standing in front of. He shuddered and closed his eyes when a tentacle caressed his cheek. Lovingly. Gently. He hadn’t expected the touch and again, Venom felt so different. Like a warm hand with lines and a texture that was unfamiliar but wonderful.

 

 **Too much?,** Venom asked, quickly retreating into his hoodie.

 

“God I hadn’t… I hadn’t realised,” he muttered, trying to keep his voice low as he steadied himself again. “I hadn’t realised how badly I missed this. I didn’t think I could miss it this badly.”

 

**That’s why you’re sad. We understand. Can we do more?**

 

“Y-yeah, I think so. Just let me know, okay?”

 

 **Okay,** Venom replied. The word sounded so loving, so sweet. The warmth he felt was different now, not just around his body but inside, in his mind and his heart.

 

Eddie really hoped that didn’t mean he was dying again.

 

**Won’t let you die. We take care of you.**

 

He could feel that Venom meant it, and maybe that’s what he had always needed. Someone to take care of him, but not just to bring him coffee or breakfast in bed. Someone who was willing to do more than that.

 

This time, as they were browsing the shelves, Venom warned him mentally whenever he was about to reach out, and did so slowly. He formed around his arm and guided him to what he wanted to buy, even briefly spread around his hand to hold it. It was sweet, really, and after the first tense moments, Eddie learned to appreciate touch again, to relax when it was offered to him.

 

“What are you grinning about?,” Mrs. Chen asked as she rang him up. “You had that dopey smile the entire time you were in here.”

 

“Honestly just… feeling a bit better about myself,” he said truthfully.

 

“So that er… parasite is still in you?,” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

 

Eddie felt a little anger inside his head, and quickly corrected her.

 

“Yeah that’s not exactly accurate, he’s more of a symbiote.”

 

“Is that important?”

 

“It is,” he said, and the anger in his mind faded. “He’s going to stick around for a while.”

 

“Fine by me. Without those thugs bothering me, I might actually be in the green this month.” She reached back and pulled a snickers bar from the shelf, handing it to Eddie. “He looks like a big guy, give that to him, will you?”

 

 **We like her,** Venom said, thinking about the peanut-y goodness.

 

“Yeah me too,” he said quietly, smiling to himself as he entered the butcher’s a few doors further down.

 

He could quite literally feel Venom’s excitement inside him and even around him, when he squirmed a little and Eddie had to laugh, trying to play it off as having to think of a joke. When the butcher then asked, he of course couldn’t think of one.

 

“What does the salad say to the refrigerator? Close the door, I'm dressing!,” he blurted out.

 

A moment passed. The butcher stared at him. Then sighed.

 

“So what will you be getting today?,” he eventually asked.

 

 **That was terrible,** Venom told him.

 

“It’s all your fault,” he mumbled into his hoodie, trying to make it look like he was scratching himself. Then he turned back to the butcher and ordered the brains. That was a totally normal order, he thought. Yes, very normal, after that joke.

 

 **You’re getting very hot** , Venom noticed, again shifting a little and cooling down.

 

It helped with his blush, though it was still noticeable when he took the very normal brains and quickly paid so he could get to his apartment where it was totally normal to have a brain eating symbiote permanently fused to himself.

 

“Well thank god that wasn’t fucking embarrassing,” he breathed out when he had finally made it back, leaning against the entry door for a moment before he got rid of his hoodie.

 

 **But it was,** he replied while shifting around Eddie again. He was forming into his humanoid shape, floating in the air next to him, and followed when Eddie put the bag of brains down on the kitchen counter.

 

“Thanks for reminding me.” For a moment he just looked at the bag, then at Venom who’s tongue flickered towards it, long and glistening. It was still a bit awkward sometimes to see him this way. “So… do you want to fry this or just gobble it up like that?”

 

“ **Fry it? That’ll ruin it,”** he said, reaching for the bag and essentially tearing it apart before he picked up the brain with his tongue, while Eddie looked on with a grossed out expression on his face.

 

“Ugh you could have waited until I was turning away.”

 

“ **Mhhhm, tasty… Thank you, Eddie.”** Venom leaned in, and rubbed his cheek against Eddie’s almost like a cat.

 

He couldn’t help but smile, despite the fact that he had just eaten an entire bag of brains. He was warm again, and Eddie didn’t pull back when Venom stayed that way. Slowly Venom formed the rest of a body, tall, so tall and large, a body that reached out and embraced him so that Eddie’s face was pressed against his chest. He let out a shivering breath, hugging back, clinging to the mass that was Venom because he couldn’t remember when he had been hugged last.

 

“ **Cuddle?,”** Venom asked, and Eddie looked up at him again.

 

There he was, that big alien being, with rows of teeth, so many that he would never be able to count them all, with a tongue so long that it brushed against his cheek in a loving way. And all Eddie felt was safe. Warm and safe. With everything he had seen Venom do, that his own body had done through him, shouldn’t he be scared?

 

“You’ll take care of me,” Eddie said softly. A statement, not a question. “Cuddle would be nice.”

 

He yelped a little inelegantly when Venom suddenly picked him up, bridal style, to carry him back to the bed that he hadn’t wanted to leave in the first place. As soon as they were lying in it, Venom curled around him. Didn’t hug him, well, technically it counted as one? But his entire body shifted and expanded so that Venom was his bed, his blanket, and his- What was he? Cuddle Buddy?

 

Eddie pushed that ridiculous thought away and just let himself relax, releasing the tension he had been holding in his body. And then right here, held by an alien being that looked utterly frightening, Eddie had the best night’s sleep of his life. The rest of the day, and the night, if he was being precise. He woke up in the middle of it, around 2 am, to look up at a grinning Venom who reached out to pet his head.

 

God, he had been touch starved. Even that felt good to him.

 

“ **Happy?,”** Venom asked.

 

“Yes. And hungry.”

 

“ **Food. Good idea!”**

 

Eddie had to laugh as he slipped into his shoes again with Venom never once letting go of him. Suddenly he was like a clingy child and Eddie didn’t mind at all even if it was very awkward to walk with. He did so until the apartment door where he shrank and hid under his clothes again, shifting a little to let him know that he was there. He hadn’t felt so comforted and safe in months.

 

So much that he wasn’t even thinking about how dangerous the city could be at 2 am. He was chatting quietly with Venom as they walked down the street to the nearest corner store. He was really in the mood for some terrible instant ramen, just the perfect 2 am snack and Venom was quite intrigued to find out what that was and how it tasted.

 

Neither of them immediately noticed the guy that suddenly pushed Eddie against the wall of a building, so hard that his head banged against it and he saw stars for a moment. He was huge, was the first thought that came to Eddie’s mind when he could see again, huge and grinning down at him with a breath that reeked of alcohol.

 

“You know, I was just going to rob you but I might as well have som fu-”

 

The guy didn’t get far when Venom emerged from underneath his clothes, wrapped around Eddie protectively and grabbed him by the throat. Before Eddie could register what was happening he threw him in the air, then grabbed his leg and changed direction quickly. He could hear the terrible snap of his bones, an almost deafening scream coming from the man and the disgusting thud of flesh hitting the concrete in the alley next to them.

 

Venom took complete control and dashed after him, shifting his arm into a sharp axe.

 

“Venom stop!,” Eddie called out, and they froze in place. “Stop, fucking hell you broke his leg.”

 

It wasn’t just broken, it was almost completely snapped in half. The bone was sticking out and Eddie could see inside him, the red, raw flesh, the bone, the blood. The guy was whimpering on the ground, too scared to even look at his leg, eyes fixed on Venom. Where his head had hit the concrete floor, a blood stain was slowly spreading.

 

“ **He wanted to hurt you,”** Venom growled, inching closer and brushing the sharp end of the symbiote axe against his throat. **“He needs to die.”**

 

“No, you can’t just kill people!”

 

Behind them, he could hear someone call out and they turned to see another man pointing his phone with a flashlight at them. Venom held up his arm to shield their eyes.

 

“ **But he touched you. He is bad. Bad people are food.”**

 

“No I- Yes he’s bad but you punished him. Please, Venom. For me. We have to go.”

 

He could feel the hesitation in Venom’s mind, but Eddie insisted. When they heard the first sirens going off, Venom jumped away, using his mass to let them fly over the rooftop to the next building, jumping further away from there. When they had put enough distance between them and the scene of the crime, Venom shrank away again, but not completely.

 

His head was small now, almost like that of a snake, and rubbed against his cheek again.

 

“You protected me.”

 

“ **Of course we did.”**

 

“You would have killed him.” Eddie didn’t know if he was judging him. Whether he was scared of that prospect or not. But Venom had done it before, and he had watched.

 

“ **We’ll kill every single one that tries to hurt us.”**

 

“I know,” he whispered, leaning against him. “Thank you. Thank you…”

 

No. He wasn’t scared. Venom and he, that was everything he needed. From now on that was everyone he would ever need.

 


End file.
